The Critic. The atrocity.

The BBQ Pit
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The Critic, the only primetime cartoon to be run on and tossed off three different networks, has found a new home on Shockwave.com. Since the creators have finally found a medium where they can do whatever they want (without all those pesky viewer demands), it looks like it’s there to stay.

Huh…has there ever been a cartoon with more wasted potential? At the beginning, this was a funny, clever show with sharp satire and great character development. It looked for a while that someone finally had an answer for The Simpsons.

Then the crap struck:

  • Somewhere along the line, the writers got the idea that Jay Sherman, despite having a good career and a wonderful son, despite getting through his divorce, despite meeting and conquering numerous challenges in life, and despite getting laid on many occasions, was a fat disgusting loser who never got laid. This led to some truly ridiculous scenes, like the one where he takes one second to describe his entire sex life. I never understood the rationale for this. What, we’re not allowed to like the guy unless he’s a perpetual underdog?

  • After developing Jay’s immediate family and the two main supporting characters (Doris and Jeremy), they apparently decided that this was enough and they could drag everyone else off the rack. None worse than the ex-wife, who is the biggest waste of ink and paint I’ve seen ANYWHERE, EVER. She was disgusting and greedy and irascible and self-centered…oh, heck with it, she had ABSOLUTELY NO REDEEMABLE QUALITIES WHATSOEVER. In terms of sheer loathability she puts C. Montgomery Burns to shame.

  • Too many friggin’ stock jokes. “Oh look, Jay’s so fat he broke the stage!” “Hey, the Jacuzzi isn’t plugged into anything!” “Wow, Marty’s sure easy to pick on, huh?” Not funny the first time, fellas.

  • Stereotypes. One of the most offensive shows ever in this regard. One after another after another. Attractive blondes are airheads! Fat people can’t run fifty feet without collapsing! Rich people are completely out of touch with reality! Southerners are hicks! And boy, that maitre’d sure has a funny accent, huh? I swear, if it wasn’t for kindly Alice (Jay’s girlfriend…gosh, I’m surprised they had the stomach for that. :rolleyes: ), I’d have stopped watching altogether.

And now the online show. Hoo boy, where to begin! Well, the first episode shows Jay being forcefully given the boot by the three networks that cancelled The Critic. (Ya know, technically that is assault and battery; I seriously doubt any company that didn’t want to get railroaded inside two weeks would do that.) Right away we have a problem: It was Duke Philips’ broadcasting company, not the real-life networks, that hired him. Technically, everyone on The Critic should have been “fired”. (Furthermore, the show was out of production when Comedy Central picked it up; they only ran reruns. So it’s arguable as to whether they “hired” Jay & company to begin with.) But not only aren’t they fired, we never see any of them again! Oh, that’s right…Jay’s a big fat loser, and it’s important to reemphasize this right off the bat by this unfunny and extremely faulty gag. And they take it a step further by claiming that the Internet is “the only medium that will still accept” someone like Jay. In other words, the writers deliberately making him out to be a pathetic loser was what got the show cancelled, and to show how far in the dumps he is, he’s forced to scrape by in a worldwide medium which has revolutionized the computer industry and is now one of the most widely used sources of information, entertainment, and communication in the world today. Um, did it ever dawn on these twits that 1996 ended?

Wait, it gets better. Alice, whom Jay forged a wonderful, loving relationship, is gone. Although Jay never mentions her by name, he comments briefly on his “two divorces”. Now, regardless of whether or not they tied the knot (at the time Fox cancelled the series they were still single), the idea of him breaking up with this woman defies all belief. Look, I can accept that it takes him two days to finish a marathon or doesn’t have a clue how to negotiate with his boss. This I can never accept. It’s deus ex machina taken to an outrageous, and, dare I say, unfunny degree.

Then around episode 5, it finally dawns on someone that because Jay was married, there’s a possibility that at some point of his life he, gasp, had sex! Let the godawful Jay-Sherman-is-a-eunuch jokes begin anew!

Cripes. In other words, The Critic was never about satire, or humor, or human characters dealing with life. No, it was all about making fun of a fat guy. Excuse me while I wish eternal damnation on some of these idiots. :mad:

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As opposed to Homer Simpson, who has always been made out to be rich, muscular, extremely intelligent, and suave…

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The Critic. The atrocity. The rant. The Pit.

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I like The Critic.

But I like Duckman better.

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Damnit, DKW, don’t you be mocking the Critic! That’s the best show, the best best bestest show…I love it.

The show does do the Jay Sherman’s a loser thing a bit too much but it’s funny…That’s kind of the basis. And those film spoofs…Those rock.

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I thought the Critic was a pretty good cartoon, although the incessant fat jokes really grated, in a way that the incessant fat jokes in the Simpsons never did. I think Homer worked better as a character because he was symbolic of the poor impulse control of the American public. Jay was simply a target. And, of course, the Simpsons is an ensemble show, so we periodically get shows in which Homer is a peripheral character, whereas every single episode of The Critic was about Jay and his Fat Ass. Even so, there were some real gems in the series, especially the movie spoofs, which almost made up for it. Remember Mrs. Doubtfire II, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger? “Do you see my bosoms? They are really hand grenades. <BOOM!> They’ll be back.”

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Man…never thought I’d see one of my threads end up here. Just so everyone knows, my digust at the direction this show has taken has been brewing for a long time, and seeing the garbage on Shockwave was absolutely the last straw. The last cartoon I’ve been this ticked off at was Beavis and Butthead. No joke.

SPOOFE - Um…what was your point? :confused:

I personally find Homer Simpson to be a mixed bag. Some episodes he’s a gritty underdog who nonetheless manages to do right. Some episodes he’s goofy but funny. And some episodes he’s a brainless pain in the butt. The Simpsons’ characterizations, over the years, have been inconsistent at best (I barely recognized anyone at the beginning of season 7), so it’s difficult to say what the “real” Homer is.

More to the point, however, it’s easy to see Homer as a fat loser because this is plausible. He’s lazy. He’s a lousy worker. He’s dumb. He’s been stuck in an entry level position for his whole career. Not so for Jay Sherman, who in many ways is a polar opposite. Additionall, Homer’s dumb antics are played for laughs. On The Critic, it looked a lot more like mean-spirited ridicule. That ain’t good, bud.

Everybody - Yes, I know there were good episodes. I know that this show briefly went in good directions. The parodies were great. The non-sexual jokes were very funny. I was there when it happened. And then it all blew up 'cause mocking the big guy somehow became top priority. And while the fat jokes were bad, by far the sex jokes were the absolute worst. I’ve never, never, ever seen a TV show based on sex jokes which was anything but horrible (Duckman doesn’t count, since it only based some episodes on lousy sex jokes).

The ONE direct challenge to The Simpsons which was ANY good (anyone remember Fish Police or Capitol Critters?) got cancelled without ever reaching its potential. I have to think the hideous change in direction had something to do with it. (Even if it didn’t, who cares; it’s bad enough.) And in its place is the bastard son on Shockwave. I strongly suggest that you all watch it, by the way, just to see what I’m talking out. Especially episode #7, emblematic of everything that went wrong.

To think of where a halfway-competent writing staff could have gone with this…

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There were great episodes. Remember the whole “Honey I Ate the Kids”? Or…“The Chicken”? Or “The Slide Whistle”?

And the one where Margo had a boyfriend…that was good. Or Jay first meeting Alice. Or the Gulf War…

I liked it, but then maybe i’m overly cynical. :stuck_out_tongue: I didn’t care so much when they bashed Jay, though I agree it was a tad over done, but it just didn’t bother me. Still, I preferred it to a saccharine sweet everyone learns a lesson at the end.

The ironic thing is that when Jay guest stars on the Simpsons, he is portrayed as this suave, ultra cool guy that Homer envies…and back on his own show, he’s a super geek. I think he’s a pretty cool guy, but well…that’s just the way the show goes.

But anyways to each her own.

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Why must one need a point? I simply saw an ironic, unworded twist in the OP.

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I still like it, but I do miss the great show with all the other great characters within Jay’s family.

That and the “I’m on the internet” joke is growing rrreeeaalllyyyy thin.

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I liked The Critic too. Anybody who calls his girlfriend a “Superfreak” is always right with me.:slight_smile: Yes the fat jokes are totally incongruent with his go get 'im attitude.